


Sand Castles

by kracken



Series: Sand Castles [1]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 21:20:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1757309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kracken/pseuds/kracken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Duo is betrayed by a man that he thought that he loved. A man who turned out to be a double agent. Heero is determined to heal him and to prove not only his love but restore Duo's trust as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

Sand Castles

Inspired by a Davic Archuletta song:Waiting for Yesterday.  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=outMituSxi0  
Chapter 1  
by Kracken

He couldn't square his memory of Duo, not even six months earlier, with this more, subdued, unsmiling, man who stood off to one side, head tipped down to hide his face behind the rim of a Preventer cap. No one had warned Heero that something had happened. Why should they? He doubted that anyone had ever guessed that he actually cared about Duo Maxwell.

Wu Fei was talking, filling Heero in on their latest mission, mind hard on facts and totally absent on anything physical. At no time did he pause and say what Heero hoped, that nothing had happened on their last attempt to eradicate a nest of terrorists, and that Duo was fine, under the weather, but unaffected by anything tragic in his life. Instead, Heero stood in the hanger, freezing, while transports towered around them, and Duo remained as still as stone, hands jammed into jacket pockets while Wu Fei finished up his stream of very correct information.

Wu Fei was filled out more, but was essentially the same as when they had fought in the war. A bundle of hot temper, controlled by force of will and regulations, he had been a great asset to Preventers. He had made it his permanent employer, while the rest of them had chosen more independent pursuits. They came in when needed, but essentially lived lives of semi retirement. He was at home in his crisp, khaki Preventer uniform, blue star patches marking him a captain of special forces. His long black hair had been braided, slicked back and straight as an arrow, in tradition Chinese fashion. A curved sword still hung at his side.

Duo was a stark contrast. He wore solid black, from head to toe, and had allowed only his face to remain uncovered. His jacket was overlarge, the collar high and strapped by buckles. His boots were military grade. The gloves on his hands were a special ops wet dream, padded on key areas, yet thin on others where sensitivity was needed. They seemed molded to fit him. His Preventer badges were hung at his jacket hem, their photos showing Heero the man he remembered; a Hawaiian shirt, an impish grin, and sparkling eyes as he mugged for the camera. Only his hair remained unchanged, a startlingly long length of three and half foot braid. That braid swung like a heavy chain as they turned and left the hanger, Wu Fei taking them into Preventer proper for their meeting with Commander Une.

"I look forward to working with you again," Heero said, meaning Duo, but unsurprised that Wu Fei replied and Duo only gave him a half glance and said nothing.

"I value your level of expertise," Wu Fei said."I still haven't found a team that reaches the level of successes that we do when we work together on missions."

Dry, boring. Heero suppressed a yawn. He studied Duo as they walked, but the man seemed intent on the floor passing under his boots. Heero could see some profile; a mouth set into a hard line and his jaw clenched.

"May I ask where you've been working?" Wu Fei asked. "You took yourself off call for six months. I imagined that you had a serious mission to accomplish outside of Preventer channels."

"At the beach," Heero replied. "Making sand castles."

Wu Fei looked back, startled, but said nothing when he realized that Heero was watching for only one reaction. Duo didn't even crack a smile. The old Duo would have giving Heero a wide smile and a comment of , "Nice tan.", or "I bet they were military grade castles." Not even getting a slight acknowledgement was almost pain.

They took an elevator upward and Heero stood as close to Duo as he could. Taking an imperceptible deep breath, he smelled leather, detergent from Duo's clothes, and a bit of masculine sweat that let him know that the warmer Preventer building wasn't going to induce Duo to unzip his jacket or even open the collar. Heero didn't smell healing wounds or telltale antiseptic. The man wasn't hiding injuries. Weapons?

As they exited the elevator, Heero hung back enough to watch Duo move. Yes, he was definitely armed and dangerous. There was a leashed tension in his movements. He was under stress. It was an odd contrast to his visual mood. Depression seemed to hang about him like a cloud as dark as his clothing.

The conference room was intimate, meant for smaller meetings. The warm wood of the oval table and the comfortable chairs, almost made it look like someone's dinning room kitchen. Pictures of Preventer teams lined the walls, as if Commander Une were a proud mother showing off her children.

Heero could almost feel Wu Fei's contempt for a woman's obvious touch in the decor as he took the seat nearest where Une had her briefs waiting for her. Heero took the chair on her other side and Duo managed to put several chairs between them as he slumped and transferred his gaze to some unseen spot on the table.

Une, herself, entered, looking hurried. She looked older, Heero thought, and pared down. Too thin. Her hair, pulled back into a tight bun, had hints of premature gray. She gave them all a polite nod, before sitting down and sorting through her briefs. "Good to see you, again, Special Agent Yuy. Thank you for agreeing to join this mission."

"Agent Chang has already told me that the last mission against these terrorists was a disaster," Heero replied, deciding to cut through the formalities. He needed more information.

Une nodded and slid a palm computer over to him. Heero read the mission report and frowned sharply. "A spy inside Preventer?"

"Working for nearly a year in that very unit," Une said angrily. "Everything checked out. His back ground was impeccable. Nothing hinted at the fact that he was not, in fact, the man that he was claiming to be." She slid another brief to Heero. "San Marco. That's all we know about him, beside his reputation as a master under cover operative. He worked for the foundation during the war. Even I didn't have access to his real name or identity. When he was needed, code was sent through untraceable channels detailing his missions. He was one hundred percent successful."

"Was he successful this time as well?" Heero wanted to know as he studied the picture of a square jawed, good looking man, who had brown eyes and an easy smile. He didn't look like a killer. He looked like someone that you would trust with your children.

"Completely successful," Une replied in a clipped tone.

"How do we know that it was this... San Marco?"

There was a few moments of silence and then Duo said, very tightly, "He told me."

Heero studied the rim of Duo's hat, longing to see the man's expression. "Was he selling information or setting up for a terrorist strike?" Heero asked instead of the longed for, "Are you all right?" that he wanted to ask, Duo.

"Information," Une replied. "He's working very closely with this particular terrorist cell. They were ready for us when we attacked their operation. We lost five agents before we were forced to withdraw. They were able to deflect all of our weapons, even long range ones, and escape. It took months to track them down again on L2. We suspect that they still have operatives planet side and that their new L2 location is a decoy."

"What's the source of this information?" Heero wanted to know, worried about reliability.

"I am," Duo replied.

"Where did you get your information?" Heero wondered.

"He told me. San Marco," Duo replied.

Heero didn't bother to attempt to puzzle that out. "You had contact when you attacked the terrorist cell?"

"There were circumstances, Yuy, that-" Une began, but Duo cut her off angrily.

"I'll tell him! It's not a secret that you can keep, Commander," Duo snapped. He took a deep breath and then his eyes appeared under the rim of his hat as he tried to meet Heero's eyes. They were shadowed, pained, and acutely embarrassed. "We were lovers for almost a year, up until the attack on the terrorist cell. We worked together. Lived together. I thought..." He made a strangled laugh that was unpleasant. "I thought that I was going to marry the guy. He was perfect. Fucking perfect. When he told me.... Well, he didn't think that I was going to survive to let anyone know his big secret. You don't think a guy is going to manage to get out of the way of a pulse rifle aimed at his ass, especially after you beat the shit out of him for kicks with the butt end, and have him down for the count."

From the look on Duo's face, Heero was almost certain that aimed at his ass was literal.

"Seems he wasn't really gay," Duo muttered, almost to himself. "He really hated doing me all of that time."

"Shit," Heero whispered.

"Yeah, pretty much," Duo ground out and then hid his eyes again. "So I'm the screw up, here. It's my fault that agents died and the mission was fucked. I couldn't tell that I was in bed with a terrorist mole."

"A few more psych meetings will help you lose that misconception, Maxwell," Une sighed, as if she had heard his self flagellation more than a few times. "From all reports and observations, no one managed to pierce his disguise. Everyone was duped."

"I'm supposed to be better than everyone else," Duo retorted, but then he was silent, hands locked together on the tabletop.

It was hard to go on after that revelation. Heero felt anger,sadness, and an overwhelming need to reach out and comfort Duo. His hand balled into a fist rather than reach out to close the space between them, though. Duo had made it clear, after the end of the war, how it stood between them. "It takes more than mutual sexual orientation, to make the relationship rocket launch." Duo had said flippantly, after Heero had revealed why Relena wasn't going to have a happily ever after with him. "Mine's certainly not taking off."

Those words of rejection had kept Heero distant, had allowed another man to take what he would have given anything to have had.That man had launched a relationship rocket with Duo and then had betrayed him in the worst way. As Une outlined their next mission, Heero could only think of finding the man and taking a terrible retribution on Duo's behalf.

"Your thoughts?" Une prompted.

"I need to go over the info," Heero replied, without admitting that he hadn't heard the last five minutes of her briefing. He wasn't worried about that. The briefing was just an over view. He would get a much more thorough information dump when they entered into strategy meetings.

"Sleep off your jet lag, and put your flip flops away, Yuy," Une said irritably. "I expect you to be sharp and on task tomorrow."

"Will do," Heero replied.

She looked from Heero to Duo and then pursed her lips as she stood up and gathered together her briefs."Chang, with me."

"Yes, commander," Wu Fei responded and stood as well. "9:00 AM, agents, in the war room."

"Oh, I'll be there," Duo replied as if he were chewing glass.

Heero only nodded and didn't watch Une and Wu Fei leave. His eyes were on Duo.

"Go ahead," Duo told him bitterly. "Get it out of your system. We won't have time, tomorrow."

Heero searched for the right words. It was hard when he was only seeing the brim of Duo's hat. He followed the threads of the Preventer logo, there, and then said, finally, "I would give anything..." he swallowed, faltered, and then tried again. "I wish that you had... wanted me, instead of him. I wouldn't have... I wouldn't have ever betrayed your trust, Duo."

Duo looked up, then, eyes dark pools of violet, full of pain and anguish. "What?"

He had expected blame, curses, maybe even a declaration that Heero wouldn't work with him. Heero could see it in his expression. He could also see a deadness, a 'too late', a part of Duo that was gone, maybe never to return.

"A light should shine in someone's eyes, when they look at you," Relena had told him. "It tells you whether someone really loves you. I've never seen that in your eyes, Heero, unless you're looking at Duo."

Duo's light had been stamped out. The flat, distrustful regard, the disbelief that was apparent in every line of his expression, had taken it's place.

Heero took a shuddering breath as he stood and made his way to the door, almost blind with emotion. "I could kill that man," he muttered, and meant it at that moment.

Duo said something, but Heero didn't want to hear rejection, didn't want the speech that would stick the knife in his heart yet again. Their rocket was never going to launch. He needed to accept that, yet again, lock down his emotions, and get his head into the mission.

\-------------------------------

The door opened and a disheveled Trowa Barton glared out, hair looking worse than usual and eyes red rimmed with weariness. Heero was standing, with arms crossed tightly over his chest, as if holding in pain as he asked, "Tell me about Duo."

Trowa sighed and his anger deflated all at once. He made a brief motion and then trudged back inside of his small, Preventer apartment. A bed, a kitchenette, a table and chairs, and a bathroom were crammed into a twenty by twenty space, His Preventer jacket was over the chair back, and his gun and holster were on the table. Heero doubted that he kept anything in the tiny closet, or the dresser. His duffle was at the end of the bed, obviously full and filthy from travel.

It could have been a hotel room, Heero thought dismally as he sat in the chair. Nothing personal hung on walls, or cluttered any surface. It was clean of personality. Heero had the feeling that he would find the same lack of 'settling down' if he were to visit Wu Fei's Preventer apartment as well. His own had been the same: a place of transition, a step from one place to the next that never held any meaning. He had been right to stop that downward spiral, Heero thought, to leave and find roots that were more permanent and nurturing to a man who had never known such things. He had felt himself dissolving after the war, slowly being eaten up by his own lack of permanence, an unwillingness to engage in the life that he had suddenly been granted.

"Tell me about yourself, first," Trowa asked, his voice sounding on the edge of sleep as he layed down on the bed. He fluffed his pillow and then stared at the ceiling as if he he were struggling to stay awake, but unwilling to give up on the notion of going to sleep all together. "Where did you go?"

"The beach," Heero replied. "I bought a small place, out of the way, and enjoyed the quiet, the sunshine, the surf."

Trowa frowned. "One bedroom, two?"

"Three, actually," Heero replied.

"Big porch?"

"Yes."

"Rocking chair, sand on the floor just inside the door, windows open to the surf breezes, and seagulls drifting about?"

"Yes."

"I can't place you in that picture," Trowa admitted. "Not without adding trenches for defense, a high tech alarm system, and a stockpile of weapons."

Heero found a tense smile. "I removed all of that in my third week, there. I realized that sand crabs weren't that dangerous and that the old couple down the beach weren't interested in anything other than late night swims in the nude and running their dogs in the surf."

"So..." Trowa rubbed at the bridge of his nose as if a headache were starting. "You did what all day long?"

"Clipped coupons," Heero joked.

Trowa rolled eyes at him. "That sounds like the old couple. You spoke with them?"

"Made friends, actually," Heero replied.

"Sand castles, coupons, and friends," Trowa mused and Heero realized that he must have spoken with Wu Fei since his meeting with Une. "Obviously it was boring or you wouldn't be here."

"Preventers needed me," Heero replied tightly. "It's not about what I want."

Trowa nodded and draped an arm over his eyes, as if he wanted to hide his emotions. "Duty. We can't escape it. I tried to ignore it, too, tried to stay with the circus and live my own life. When they say, 'You have to help. No one else can do this.', you think about consequences and weigh your life against the lives of the people that you can save. You realize that this is for the rest of your life and you stop struggling against it."

"That's not what I intend to do," Heero replied and Trowa peeked at him from under his arm, incredulous. "I do intend to live my life, even though I have to use my skills, now and again."

"And it's just that easy?"

"No."

"I didn't think so."

"You can't go, every time they call," Heero explained. "You have to decide what's important."

"That isn't easy. What if you're wrong?"

"Then you have to live with the consequences. It's a risk."

"What's the payoff?" Trowa wondered."A beach house doesn't seem worth potentially losing lives."

"It's not about a beach house," Heero explained. "It's about not losing yourself, not giving until there is nothing left but a man who completes missions." Heero looked around the bare room. "That kind of man forgets why he's fighting, loses his heart, and then loses his life, because he stops caring about being alive."

"Like me? Like Fei?" Trowa wondered, his voice sounding depressed and on the edge of sleep.

"Like Duo?" Heero pressed.

"He tried to climb out, just like you did," Trowa told him. "He was damned happy. It was hard watching all of that get crushed like a bug under a transport wheel. Now he's worse than he was, worse than any of us."

"Suicidal?" Heero wondered in alarm.

Trowa was a long time in answering and then, "I don't know. He wants to go on this mission for payback, he says, but I wonder if he's looking for a way to go out like a hero? He's not preparing like he usually does. Wu Fei says the same. He's quiet and keeps to himself when he's usually demanding every detail and checking his gear."

"I need to talk to him," Heero said in alarm as he stood.

"Not, 'I should contact psyche?', Heero? That's new. Maybe a trip to the beach was good for something. Maybe it's given you the balls to finally face the man and say what's on your mind."

"That doesn't take balls," Heero replied as he opened the door. "It takes caring about my future... enough to want him to be a part of it."

"I don't think he'll listen," Trowa warned him.

"I need to try."

"I'm not very good at picking up after a crash and burn, Heero. I could have helped Quatre better, if I were, and Duo."

"I won't crash and burn," Heero promised. "I'll keep trying until he listens and I won't let this mission be his last."

\--------

"This way, Yuy!" Sally Po said as she passed him in the hallway and plucked at his sleeve. "You know you need the physical and I have the time."

Her hair was caught up in a braided bun at the back of her head and that had a few pencils and pens stuck into it. In her baby blue lab coat, peppered with Preventer medical badges, and with her computer pad tucked under one arm, she still looked like the no nonsense soldier from the war. Her voice, used to command, had Heero falling in beside her even as he protested.

"I was going to speak to Duo."

"He won't talk to you," Sally assured him. "He won't talk to anyone, as a matter of fact. You'll only be standing outside of his room and getting bored, if you try."

Heero didn't say anything else until they were in Preventer medical, in her private examination room, and away from anyone who could hear their conversation. Then he said simply, "Trowa believes that Duo might be looking for a hero's funeral."

"Take off your jacket and shirt," she ordered as she made notes on her medical pad. Without looking up, she replied. "We' re all aware of how fragile Duo has become. I can't discuss his case with you, but I can ask you some questions, because your answers might impact my patient's welfare."

Heero tossed his jacket and shirt over a chair. She looked over his tightly knit body, with it's peppering of scars, and nodded with a pleased smile as she made a note on her pad.

"You've been relaxing," she said. "There's some meat on your ribs for once. I was of the same mind as everyone else, that your 'Gone to the beach' story was just that, a story."

"I want to talk about Duo," Heero replied as he sat on the exam table, feet swinging shy of the floor.

She raised eyebrows at him as she strapped a sensor to his chest and wrist. "A lot of grief could have been avoided if you had bothered to talk to Duo instead of about him with someone else."

Heero frowned. "You don't know anything."

"Then enlighten me?" Sally prodded. "Duo is my dear friend, not just a medical patient. Even a few words from you would have made a difference."

"I wasn't what Duo wanted," Heero managed though the words caused him pain. "I wanted to be. I would have given anything..." he swallowed hard and looked away. "He saw it differently. I wasn't the one who didn't want to talk."

She bit her lower lip, looked confused, and then said, "My interest is in Duo's fragile psyche. He needs to heal. He needs to come to terms with what happened. If you don't handle him right, you could do severe damage. Understand? I won't give away his confidences, but I will say that you do have the power to break whatever that bastard left of him. Support him, as Agent Yuy, but don't try to open old wounds and be something more, now, when he can least deal with it."

Heero recalled that look in Duo's eyes, the one that hinted at things lost that were never, perhaps, to be recovered. "He told me how things were, between us. Whatever I feel, I respect him and his decisions. I'm here to do a mission and then I'll be out of his life again. I won't try to force him to change his mind."

"Force is a good term," Sally said brutally. "When a person is violated as completely as Duo was by that man, it can be just as traumatizing, just as life shattering as any physical attack. He was used, thoroughly. He may never recover from that."

"You shouldn't be telling me this," Heero replied as he pulled off the sensors and reached for his clothes. "That's a violation as well. If he wants me to know it, he'll tell me himself."

Sally looked bitter. "I haven't told you anything. It's the tip of the ice burg, Heero. I'm only warning you, the same way I would warn you to watch out for an injured man on your team. The only difference is, that Duo is injured in a way you can't see."

"I can see it," Heero retorted.

Sally read the readings on a machine and made notes as she said, "Disgustingly healthy, of course. You're free to join the team." She gave Heero a level look. "Don't imagine that you know anything."

"We're all ignorant," Heero growled as he headed for the door. "Keeping ourselves that way isn't going to help anything."

Heero found his room was just as he left it. depressingly free of anything personal. His bag had been delivered. When he set it at the foot of the plain bed, and taken off his gun to place on the lone table, he realized that he had made his room look just like Trowa's.

Heero remedied that by digging into his pack and pulling out several photos. They were elastiphotos. Their laser images of his beach home, his new friends, stretched between his fingers to become large as he touched them to walls. They clung there, bright sunshine and smiles, though, doing little to lift the heavy weight on his heart. A seashell went on the table next to his gun and a small stand up photo that opened up to reveal a well aged picture of Duo during the war. He was half turned towards the camera, cocky smile in place and hair messy and half unbraided as he climbed up his Gundam.

Was that look gone forever? Heero wondered as he smoothed fingers over he image. Was that man, that he had fallen in love with, now a ghost in his memory that he needed to bury and mourn? Sally and Trowa seemed to think that he was.

"Location of Agent Duo Maxwell," Heero asked his cell as he pulled it from one pocket.

"Access code?" the phone asked cheerily. Heero gave it. "Preventer Gym." was his answer.

Heero coded in the location of the surveillance, abusing his permissions ruthlessly. The color image of the gym, on his cell, was small, but he was able to pick out Duo right away. he touched the image to enlarge it.

Duo was dressed in ugly gray shorts and an overlarge white shirt. He was pushing weights up and down at a frantic pace on the machine, his breathing going in and out like a bellows. His eyes were fixed and intense, muscles corded and trembling.

The image gave Heero a small amount of comfort. A man ready to end his life didn't take time to burn off steam, or worry about his physical condition. If Duo was looking for a hero's death, it was possible that it was subconscious, still, not a full blown decision.

Heero tried to imagine how he felt. He could only put it in a context that he could understand if he imagined that it had been Duo. pretending for months to love him utterly, sharing every secret, every intimacy, and promising a life together. Then could Heero feel the pain Duo must be experiencing, the helplessness and violation of watching a promising life and love collapse and burn under the weight of the lies that it had been.

Heero had felt that sting only once, but their love had been a hope, only, not this full blown thing that Duo had experienced. Heero had gone on, not ever willing to kill the hope entirely, but ready to live without it, somehow, if Duo desired it. Wasn't that the difference between love and a lie? He cared that much for Duo, to stand aside if he wanted it, to live alone, for his entire life rather than impose himself where he wasn't wanted, for Duo's happiness.

That didn't mean that Heero couldn't feel bitterness, or even anger, sometimes, at the situation, but he wouldn't ever let it make him hate Duo.

Duo finished his set out of exhaustion, not any agreed on count. Wu Fei was suddenly there, tossing a small sweat towel at him and saying something sarcastic. Duo wiped his face and grimaced. He froze and looked at Wu Fei, and then threw the towel back at him. Wu Fei let it drop. Madness, Heero caught, from Wu Fei, and Duo's, Mind your own business, as he stood and tried to relax over worked muscles. Yuy isn't here just for the mission, from Wu Fei, and then Duo's walking away without another word. Wu Fei stared after him and then seemed to sigh.

"Mind your own business," Heero agreed and turned off the cell. He tossed it onto the table and it clattered against his gun. He didn't think that he, himself, could follow that advice.

\-------------------------------

"They're good," Duo muttered as he walked around the 3-d map. "Ice, snow, glaciers, volcanoes.. Landing there is impossible. Satellites can't get a fix on shit. Seventy percent chance of nature taking out the entire operation. Definitely men who aren't bothered by suicide missions."

"Slow process of walking in equipment," Heero agreed as he eyed the crevasse and tried to see something, any hint of an installation. "Thermal power, most likely."

Wu Fei reached into the simulation and spun the view, before tweaking it to make the crevasse look larger. "Nothing is concrete, of course, but this area of rock is two percent cooler than the surrounding area."

"Two percent?" Trowa snorted from where he lounged in one of the conference room chairs. "We're risking lives on a two percent temperature anomaly?"

"Our lives," Duo agreed. He was still out of uniform, wearing a loose black tee with a white skull in a splatter formation on the front. His jeans were black, as well, one knee a little worn. In a fight, Heero thought, it automatically marked which knee he used most when fighting, kneeling to shoot, or even climbing into a transport. It was a mark that could be used against him, and it confirmed his state of mind. He wasn't a hundred percent.

Even Heero had put on his Preventer uniform. When working in head quarters it gave him an instant recognition and level of command that casual clothing didn't. After months in flip flops and only swim trunks, it chafed and felt constrictive.

"Satellites didn't show any foot traffic?" Heero felt compelled to ask, just to be thorough. He already knew the answer and the hundreds of ways satellite recognition could be avoided.

"None," Wu Fei replied. He looked to Commander Une, who was pacing with her hands locked behind her back, waiting for them to finish with their conclusions. "Our mission will be to access the installation."

"And acquire information, weapons, and equipment," Une added."I want to know if this group has arms and where they go."

"I hate these kinds of missions," Duo grumbled as he reached out and spun the image like a top and turned away. "A good bomb tossed down their throats will make everyone's lives easier."

"That's why I make the mission plans, and you don't, Maxwell," Une retorted. "If you don't have the stomach for it, drop out."

Duo glared at her. "I'll ignore that," he said, "but I can't ignore the fact that I shouldn't be on this mission to begin with. I do have a pretty big score to settle. Aren't you afraid that I won't keep a lid on that?"

The tension was thick in the room. Une simply stared calmly at Duo until he looked away and hunched his shoulders, like a wolf showing his grudging submission. Heero wanted to reach out reassuringly. His hand ached to touch.

"We're here, because we never hesitate to sacrifice our own interests," Trowa said as he traced some imaginary design on the table top with a calloused finger.

Heero's hand went into a fist as Duo nodded grimly. Yes, Heero thought, we sacrifice until we bleed out. "I'm not going." It was a moment before Heero recognized his own voice. He analyzed the declaration for a moment and then nodded, reconfirming it. Act on your emotions, he remembered. It had been a mistake to come back, to think that he could live both the lives that he wanted at the same time. Both of them took far too much dedication of purpose.

Duo's look of astonishment was something that he had to turn from, as he removed his uniform jacket and put it gently on the table. His gun and Preventer badge followed.

"Yuy!" Wu Fei protested hotly. "If this is some sort of joke, we don't have time for it!"

"It's not a joke," Heero replied firmly as he loosened his tie. "There are many men, with Preventers, young, eager men, who are just as capable as I am of mounting this suicide mission. I've given enough. If you need verbal consultations, I will still be available, but my body is my own and I want it at peace. I resign Commander Une."

Heero walked out of the room and down the corridor, before Duo caught up to him, grabbed him hard by the arm, and spun him round. He was furious. "What the fuck,Heero? You can't just leave us like this."

"I can," Heero replied, searching Duo's eyes, sadly. "I wish that you would as well. I wish that you could feel the peace that I've found."

"Why did you come back, then?" Duo demanded. "Did you just want this dramatic bullshit when you quit?"

"No," Heero replied and put a hand over Duo's on his arm. He pressed tightly. "After all of this time, I still couldn't pass up a chance to see you. I know that you don't want to hear that, but it's true."

Duo scowled. "You act like I don't want you around and then you decide to take off before I can even talk to you. Tell me straight what's going on, because I'm not getting it."

"Duo, I want to go on this mission," Heero told him, reaching out one hand to take hold of Duo's braid and run its softness through his fingers.

Duo watched his fingers slide, confused. "Should I call Sally? I think you need your head examined."

Heero shook his head with a pained smile. "I want to go for all the wrong reasons, reasons that might get us injured."

Duo blinked and then shook his head as if to clear it. "Still not following you."

"I want to go to keep you safe, to keep you from doing something dangerous, because, I believed, that you didn't care anymore."

Duo thought that over, chewing on his bottom lip, and then he let it go and asked, "and you don't think that now?"

"Two Gundam pilots, who understand the situation, can stay unemotional and logical about making sure that you follow orders," Heero replied as he dropped the braid, wondering why Duo had allowed that intimacy.

"So, now it's, 'Duo's good, time to get out of town?'." Duo sighed and said in exasperation, "Why can't you ever have a conversation with me? Why can't you stand still long enough for me... for me..." Duo pulled away completely and briskly rubbed his own arms. "What the hell does it matter? You run away. You don't say anything. You just stare at me like I'm a sideshow. Maybe that was why it was so easy for a terrorist mole to get me to bend over for him. I just wanted someone to talk outside of , 'Which bomb should we use and what's your ETA to target?'."

"You didn't want me," Heero said in an incredulous whisper. "You told me that I wasn't right for you."

Duo stared into his eyes. "When did I say that?"

"It takes more than mutual sexual orientation, to make the relationship rocket launch," Heero recalled from memory that still hurt as badly as when it had first been said.

Do frowned. "I said that?" Heero nodded and Duo looked even more confused. "I don't remember that at all. Why would I say that? Did you ask me something?"

He didn't remember the worst moment of Heero's life? The pain in Heero's psyche grew more intense. "I told you..." Heero swallowed when his voice failed him. "I told you that I was gay."

Duo was turning white. Heero could see him shake with emotion. "When was this?"

"End of the war party," Heero replied and wasn't sure how he was finding the strength to keep standing there and having his heart broken all over again. "I wanted you to know, that I was... that I wanted... I was hoping that we..."

Duo closed his eyes tightly. He said, "I remember being drunk. Everyone was hooking up for some after the party good time. I remember... Davis calling me on my cell..." He pushed his hair back to reveal the small bud piercing one inner ear like a blue glowing jewel. "He wanted to hook up with me. I said something stupid to him, blew him off. Maybe... Maybe that's what I said to him..."

Heero remembered the moment in acute detail, but gave it its new perspective. Standing slightly behind Duo, nervous and ready to blurt his revelation and hope for the future, Duo's reply had not seemed strange at all. He had been expecting rejection, after all, he realized. He had never really believed that Duo could show an interest in him.

"It's all ruined!" Heero shouted in anguish, jerking away and back from Duo. "We can't go back! We can't change everything that happened. I'll never be able to make you believe in me, not after what that bastard did to you. All a fucking misunderstanding!" His laugh was hysterical and he bit his hand to get it stopped.

Heero couldn't stay, couldn't listen to Duo trying to say something to him. Yes, he thought, he was a runner. He was going to run again, and , this time, he wasn't going to come back. He'd caused himself and Duo far too much pain.

\-----------------------------------------

"Don't!" Heero growled as Duo came into his quarters.

Duo stood, hand on the knob, and then he had a sudden determined look on his face. As Heero shoved things into his duffle, Duo closed the door and leaned his body against it, as if barring Heero's way.

"You're crying," Duo whispered in disbelief.

Heero wiped harshly at his face and shook his head as he firmly turned his back on Duo. "Don't I have a reason?"

"Yes," Duo replied with a sigh.

Heero waited for an insult, a jab at his lack of manhood, but Duo didn't offer one. He said, instead, "When... well... after the mission.... after I found out about that bastard... I curled up in the closet and cried, with a bottle of whiskey for company,... I don't know how long. Hours, days... it's all a blur... I just... I know how you're feeling. Time wasted. A fool. An idiot. Used. Raped....mentally... physically... only, you though that it wasn't at the time. You thought that you knew what was going on... that you were in control... that you had it figured out... but you didn't."

Heero asked, wanting to know, "Is that bastard dead?"

"Yeah," Duo replied. "Fei shot him. I was on my front, on the ground, with his gun in my ass. I twisted and flipped my legs around to knock the gun and kick him. I managed it. The gun went off. Bullet was a quarter of an inch from hitting a nut. Fei heard the shot. He was just, there, like he fucking materialized out of space and bulkhead, and took him out. I didn't even get to do that much."

Heero wiped both hands over his face harshly, realizing just how close Duo had come to dying. "It's been hard," he admitted as he began packing again. "Wanting you and not... not saying anything. Respecting how you felt... How I thought you felt."

Duo finally moved away from the door to look at the photos on the wall. "Maybe... Maybe you wouldn't have found this, if we had been together? Maybe, together in every way, you would have just kept fighting beside me. Things might not have worked out. The odds are way fucking against missing that bullet every time. I think..." He swallowed hard and reached out to touch a beach photo, "Nothing that happened to me would compare... would be worse... than seeing you die like that. I'd much rather see you on a beach, in the sun and surf... happy."

Heero closed his eyes tightly and leaned on his duffel. "I told myself, that wanting your happiness, and respecting what you wanted, was better than... letting you see how angry I was, how disappointed, how ... terrible...I felt..."

"You always did love that self sacrificing shit," Duo retorted and his voice was very unsteady.

Heero was suddenly behind Duo, taking his shoulders and pulling the man back against him. He leaned his forehead into Duo's shoulder, breath against the man's neck, as he said, "You were supposed to be happy. I sacrificed for nothing."

Duo cleared his throat and his hands closed over Heero's. They were warm and trembling. "He fooled me, because I wanted to be fooled. I was so lonely. Empty. I wanted you, but you had pulled away, made yourself distant. Now I know why. It was so easy for him to prey on that, to say all the right things. I'm worth it. I'm great. I'm sexy. Who the hell wouldn't want me? Maybe he didn't like screwing me, but he was good at it too. All the right things. All the right words. I opened my legs like a whore getting a hundred dollars."

Heero tightened his arms. "Don't say that! Don't think it. Don't make your feelings cheap and disgusting. They weren't. You did everything right. You wanted love. You gave love. He was the bastard."

Duo tried for a chuckle, but it came out grating. "Next we'll be having tea and biscuits and reading romance novels." He bowed his head in embarrassment. "I'm supposed to be tough. A gundam pilot."

"You're human," Heero told him, turning him so that Duo had to look at him. "That's what I've learned about myself. That's why I'm not going on Une's mission, why I'm going back to the beach. I'm human, Duo, and I don't intend to live the life of a machine, waiting for the next mission, until my empty life sucks that last breath out of me. I don't want that for you either. I want, more than anything else, for you to come with me."

Heero turned away and began taking the photos off the wall.

"You won't, though," he continued as he packed them. "You can't trust me."

"Who says I can't?" Duo asked wistfully. "Who says that you haven't been the only person that I have ever trusted? You've never betrayed me. You never did less than tell me like it was. You're not a delusion Heero. You're gundanium bed rock."

Heero went still, photos curling in his hands as they shrank to manageable sizes for packing. Could he believe that? Heero couldn't see how those words could be true. He didn't want to call Duo a liar, though. He wanted too badly for those words to believe. He understood, then, with painful clarity. "You lied to yourself."

It took a long moment and then Duo took a shuddering breath and replied shakily, "Yeah. That's hard to admit. Hard to see that I was that damned desperate. I ignored every clue, every sixth sense, everyone who wondered why I was hooking up with a guy who didn't seem to match anything that I said I admired in a man. I just... wanted... needed. With you here, so close..." He took another shuddering breath. "I can see it clear as day, all the things I ignored. He wasn't really that good, Heero. I just made it easy for him."

Heero stopped himself from crushing the photos. he turned to Duo, his heart in his eyes. "Can I... I want... Let me show you what's true."

Duo looked frightened for a split second, nerves strung tight, but then he firmed and nodded. He held out a hand with calloused, blunt fingers; a hand used to weapons and a hard life full of impossible odds against continuing to breathe.

Heero tossed the photos onto his duffel, reached out his own hand, and took it. He squeezed tight and gently pulled Duo closer. "Come with me," he begged.

There was a visible struggle, the warrior reluctant to give up his post, the self sacrificing core that they all possessed wondering what madness was being contemplated. Not give up his life for others? Not be there when he as needed? Live peacefully? Duo was traveling the thorny road that Heero had already traversed. He remembered how painful it had been for himself, especially when others had thought that his running away was cowardice.

"There are others who can do the work, who can sacrifice in your place," Heero insisted. "You have given enough." When he saw the conflict in Duo deepen he had only one other weapon to throw into the fray. "If you were to die on this mission, Duo, Une would feel badly about your death, while filling out forms to replace you with another agent. Preventers would go on. There are agents just as good as we were in our prime. We are not irreplaceable."

"Maybe after this mission..." Duo replied uncertainly.

"There will always be an 'after this mission'," Heero argued. "It's an excuse."

Duo closed his eyes tightly and then nodded. "I'll come. It's... hard for me, though."

"It was hard for me, as well," Heero admitted. He finished packing and put the duffel on his shoulder, his elation hard to contain. He took Duo's hand after to reassure him. "You'll feel regret, guilt, and a powerful urge to come back here. Une will call you, begging you to take another mission."

"You came back," Duo pointed out.

"For you," Heero replied as he gently pulled Duo from the room that he hoped he would not see again. "Just for you."

Duo's anxiety cleared suddenly. "For you I could do a lot of things," he said firmly.

Heero smiled, feeling his heart open up fully for the first time since his terrible misunderstanding. "It will get easier," he promised.

TBC

Please check out my male romance/detective novels on Kindle and Nook by searching my pen name: Kracken


	2. 2

Sand Castles

Inspired by a Davic Archuletta song:Waiting for Yesterday.  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=outMituSxi0  
Chapter 2  
by Kracken

"How much did this cost?" Duo wanted to know as he turned around and surveyed the long strip of white sand beach, the turquoise water, and the waving palm trees and sea oat peppered sand dunes.

Heero fumbled with a key as he balanced his duffle on one shoulder. "Nothing," he admitted as he managed the lock and then swung open the door to the sprawling beach house of white bead board, gray porches, and large windows. Dropping the duffel inside, he moved to open those windows, pushing them back so that they slid ingeniously into the walls and then folding back blue gray shutters to let in the breeze and the light. Turning around he watched Duo enter and felt suddenly nervous. "Relena gave it to me. She said that she never came here. Doesn't like the beach."

Duo grunted as if amused, and then asked,"Where's my room?" He gave the main room a sweeping look that told Heero that he was memorizing the layout like an agent on a mission.

In mine, Heero wanted to say, but he knew that it was too soon. Duo needed to relax first. He needed to stand down. He motioned to the one spare. "In there. "

Duo nodded and carried his duffel into the bedroom. He called back, "Are you really this clean, or do you have maid service?"

"Everything in its place," Heero replied and then picked up his duffel and headed to his room. "I'm changing clothes."

"Good idea. I've been dying from the heat since we left the airport."

Heero was rarely out of swim trunks at home. Always attracted to dark colors, he had taken a perverse satisfaction in choosing every wild Hawaiian pattern he could fine. The ones he chose, this time, were red with white flowers. The shirt that he pulled on was a loose orange t that he had ripped the sleeves off of. Bare feet stayed bare as he went back into the main room.

Duo had on combat khaki shorts with too many pockets and a black tank top. His dog tags and ever present cross were still front and center on his breast. He was barefoot as well, but he looked nervous about it. His legs, Heero noticed had some thick scarring, with the worst one crossing over his left knee. It looked as if something else had burned his neck in a hand sized patch.

There was an air of daring about Duo, as if he hadn't shown that much skin in a long while, as if he had taken off armor when he knew that there was going to be a fire fight. He hadn't taken off everything, though.

"You won't need a gun," Heero promised him.

Duo stiffened and then, slowly, he reached behind him and under his tank top and pulled the small gun from his waistband. He stared at it, smoothed a hand over it, and then turned to take it back to his room. It gave Heero a moment to decide on his next words.

Duo was damaged. He might say that he trusted Heero, but he was like a wild thing, a wrong move or word ready to send him fleeing. When Duo returned, hands in pockets and eyes on the floor, Heero discarded a number of things to say from, 'You look really good in shorts.' to 'I don't remember those scars.' Avoiding anything that the man's false lover might have used to gain his confidence or saying anything that might undermine Duo's confidence in how Heero felt about him, were to be avoided.

Heero stepped forward cautiously until he was toe to toe with Duo. Very slowly, he reached out, took hold of the dog tags, and lifted them up and over Duo's head. He tossed them towards a garbage can in the small open kitchen and they went in unerringly with a clatter and clink. Duo stared after them, swallowed hard, and then gave a single nod.

"I feel..." Duo struggled for words. "I feel like I just jumped out of a jump ship, miles above the earth, and I don't have a parachute."

"I'm here to catch you," Heero promised.

Duo met his eyes. "How did you do it? You didn't have anyone."

"You know me," Heero chuckled. "I just considered it a mission."

Duo laughed lightly and then moved to look out a window. He narrowed eyes at the sun drenched rolling surf and listened to the seagulls calling. "I could get used to this."

"I'm hoping," Heero admitted.

"Une..." Duo sighed, paused for a long moment and then continued, "She practically called me a traitor when I bowed out of that mission. Peterson, though, he's an up and coming if I ever saw one. He could have made Gundam pilot, easy. He's quick, smart, and fearless."

"So was Daniels," Heero told him.

"Your replacement," Duo remembered. "He was good. I liked working with him. On that last mission that we did together, he even managed to get to the command center before me. Took out five terrorists." Duo frowned, his eyes tracking something along the beach. "Maybe we're getting old?"

Heero's eyes slid over Duo's many scars. "It's a young man's job," he agreed. "You age fast; get used up before you're thirty."

Duo grimaced. "I feel used up, now. I think I was done before you ever showed up, I just wouldn't stand down and admit it."

Heero moved to stand behind Duo. He wanted to reach out but a tension in Duo's shoulders stopped him. The light was making strands of fire in his brown, braided hair. Heero admired it and kept his hands to himself as Duo asked, "So, what do you do around here, anyway?"

Heero smiled as he looked out of the window and replied, "Swim, sunbathe, walk the beach, talk with the neighbors, read, collect shells..."

Duo turned and then seemed surprised that Heero was so close to him. He stepped away and looked at the walls of the main room. There were pictures of Heero at events, at parties, posing with friends, and a few showing him building things.

"What are these?" Duo asked as he walked up to them and looked closer.

"Community projects," Heero replied. "Down the beach there's a few parks where older people live. They can't always help themselves when things go wrong with their homes."

"That's sweet," Duo said with a grin.

Heero looked embarrassed and just shrugged.

Duo seemed hesitant and then he said in a soft voice, "You know, I always did want to... build things. Maybe, I could help out, too?"

"I'd like that," Heero replied with relief. Until that moment it had felt as if a feral cat had wandered into his home, and hadn't yet decided to stay and be tamed. "There's always work to do."

Duo took another slow walk around the main room, smiling at a large jar full of shells and a bad attempt, on one side table, to make art out of them. when Duo stopped at the small vid phone, tucked into the corner of the kitchen, behind a coffee maker, he stared at it.

"What... What if she calls?" Duo asked, and almost sounded fearful.

"I have them all blocked," Heero told him. "It will be your decision whether you want to call them or not."

Duo frowned and then nodded. He moved onto the porch and Heero followed him. Duo sat in a wooden chair and put his feet cautiously up on the porch railing. Relaxing, he stared off at the surf. Heero joined him and they listened to gulls and rolling surf for long minutes.

"I like this," Duo decided.

"I'm glad," Heero replied and put his feet up as well. Time would tell, though, if Duo would really stay.

___________________________________

"We're being watched," Duo suddenly said quietly. "Act casual while I get my gun."

Heero's eyes swept the beach, the sand dunes, and the small walkway of sand, lined with palm trees and sea oats, before his eyes went to Duo. "This is a public place," he assured Duo.

Duo was smiling slightly, everything about him giving a false impression of being relaxed and unaware. "Just down the path, behind that clump of tall oats..."

"Think about it," Heero insisted, not giving the spot another glance. "I have friends and neighbors. The beach is a public place. The chances of someone lying in wait to ambush us and torture us for what we know is slim to none."

Duo's eyes narrowed irritably. "They are in hiding-" he began to argue, but a small bark interrupted him.

A small ball of white fluff with two black eyes, came bounding towards the porch down the path. An exasperated voice said, "No, Nancy girl!" and then, shouting towards them as a tall thin man in white casual beach clothes, stepped into view, "Watch it, Heero! You know what happened last time!"

The little dog made the porch as if it had levitated over the stairs and was suddenly squirming and fawning at Heero's feet. Heero gingerly picked it up and carried it back off the porch at arms length.

"Got her, Frank!"

"Watch the tinkles!" the man warned as he reached them and clipped a light leash on the happy dog. He had some gray in his close cropped brown hair and a very lively pair of blue eyes. His face looked chiseled out of bone, with very strong lines, but he was handsome in a rugged way.

Heero put her down and she did, indeed, have to 'tinkle'.

"Sorry, Heero," the man said.

"You know I like your visits, Frank. It's just a hazard." Heero chuckled as the dog fawned for attention again.

"She simply is too excited to go before we get here," Frank sighed. He blinked at Duo, who had stepped off of the porch, now too, and was standing uncertainly. "Is this a new neighbor?"

"New room mate," Heero corrected. "Duo will be staying with me for as long as he likes."

"Duo?" Frank shook Duo's hand, with a small tightness about his face that might have been disappointment, or resignation. "Happy to meet you. Heero definitely needs some company. He's even broken down into making 'shell art'. That's one step from the lonely crazies, if you ask me."

Heero laughed outright. "I only wanted to put my compulsive shell collections to good use."

Frank shook his head. "Everything doesn't need to have a 'use'. If you insist, though, keep putting them in jars and start making walls, like Patterson does in his sand garden."

Heero shook his head. "I don't want any walls."

"Doorstops, then, or lamp bases," Frank amended. There was a pause and then he put a hand on his hip and wondered, "Well, don't we get to come in, Yuy?"

"Only if Nancy is done tinkling," Heero replied.

Frank grinned as he led Nancy back up the steps. "I can't guarantee anything."

Heero gave Duo an 'I told you so' look, before he followed Frank up the stairs and into the house.

Frank kept Nancy on a leash to keep a better eye on her, as he sat down. Heero didn't miss the unobtrusive look around the room. The man wanted to know just how intimate his relations with Duo was, Heero surmised. If Duo had changed anything, that would have spoken to a closer relationship than Heero was admitting.

Heero wasn't unaware of Frank's interest in him, but he had been honest from the beginning that nothing was going to happen between them. He supposed, though, that a person couldn't help hoping for a change of heart. Heero had waited, was still waiting, for Duo to declare whether they might be something more together.

"I've been away," Heero apologized. "I don't really have much besides coffee or tea."

"Don't worry, I'm good, " Frank assured him. "I saw your car up in the dune parking lot and decided to welcome you home. If you need to borrow something, before you manage to go shopping, drop by and help yourself. You know me, always stocked like a survivalist."

Heero chuckled, "Thank you. I might take you up on that. Duo might want to settle in before I show him around our little village."

"I'm not shell shocked, you know," Duo protested with a bit of irritation. "We can go shopping, Heero."

"All right," Heero soothed. "We'll go a bit later."

Duo nodded and Frank looked from one to the other of them with a raised eyebrow. "You're both tense. You need a day to lay on the beach and let the sun and surf put you in a better place." He stood up. "And, on that note, I'll leave you to it. In fact, I'll let everyone else know that you need a few days to relax. You know the Danielson's and their friends, their roving party doesn't need much of an excuse to end up at anyone's house."

"Thank you. I think you're right," Heero said with a wince, having been on the receiving end of the roving beach party a few times. They were fun, but a bit too much more than once a month, or several months, for that matter.

"Good to meet you, Duo," Frank said as he shook Duo's hand. "I'm sure we'll all be good friends."

"I'm sure," Duo replied shortly but his eyes were a bit hard.

Frank released his hand, looking a little nervous, gave Heero a brief squeeze on the upper arm, and saw himself to the door.

"See you in a few days, guys," Frank said. "Maybe we'll have a little beach cook out?"

"Sounds good," Heero replied and then Frank and Nancy were gone as he was left searching the floor and hoping that she hadn't tinkled.

"You're close?" Duo suddenly asked and Heero didn't miss the double meaning.

Heero left off his search and faced Duo. He took hold of Duo's hands in his and met him, eye to eye. "Not like you mean," he assured Duo. "Only one person gets to be close to me like that. I won't pressure him into it, though, so I'll keep it to myself, for now."

"Maybe he knows already, though, and, maybe, he doesn't feel pressured?" Duo replied softly.

"You're worried about Frank, or you wouldn't say anything, not yet," Heero countered. "I'm not going anywhere, Duo. I know that you need more time. The worst thing that we could do is to jump into things, now."

Duo was suddenly angry and stepping closer to Heero. He shook loose a hand, cupped the back of Heero's head with it, and brought him close. "I was totally crapped on, Heero," he said, "But if you think that I can't tell the difference between you and that asshole, then you don't know me at all."

"We have time," Heero whispered, struggling to stay strong despite every fiber of his being wanting to bring their lips together.

Duo made an exasperated sound and then jerked his other hand loose. He grabbed Heero hard and fast and brought them together. His lips devoured Heero's as his body, and obvious desire, plastered itself against Heero's body. He was strong, in command, and all male. Heero groaned into Duo's mouth.

Duo finally whispered against Heero's lips. "Can't I have someone who really wants me?"

"You have me," Heero promised, "But I won't ruin everything by moving too fast. Give it a few days. Come on, Frank was right, let's sit on the beach and watch the surf."

Duo's hands fell and he looked disappointed, sad, and at a loss. Heero took his hand again and gave him a gentle tug until he began to follow him. Once out in the sunshine and cutting between dunes to reach the beach, Duo said, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Heero replied. "Just.... Stop wanting because you think it isn't real and that you won't have another chance."

Duo was quiet as they finally stood inches from the surf, the ocean stretching out before them and seagulls dancing lazily over the waves. "You're right, that is what I was doing, but... I really do want you, too."

"It's mutual," Heero assured him and squeezed Duo's hand tightly.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

He was tanned, he was relaxed and Heero decided that he was at peace as well. Swimming in the rolling surf, he was like a seal with a long tail of hair. That hair had begun to sport beaded braids, a few dreadlocks, and streaks of blonde from the sun. When he smiled, now, his teeth were white against his darkened skin and his rare purple eyes were arresting. Heero never grew tired of looking into them, or of wanting the man who owned them, but he knew that he had been right to wait. Fresh from betrayal, Duo had been far too fragile, to ready to believe that he had deserved that betrayal.

"Ready to bring him out into the world, again?" Frank asked as he leaned against the railing of the porch, with Nancy sniffing on her leash at his heel, and watched Duo swim as well.

Heero frowned at the thought. "I'm still blocking calls from Preventers and Relena's government. I haven't told him that Trowa and WuFei called, claiming he was necessary to save all of humanity."

Frank looked askance at Heero, "All of humanity? Maybe you should have told him about that one?"

Heero grunted his annoyance. "That was two weeks ago. Humanity is still safe and sound. It appears that others are very capable of saving the world."

Frank still looked a little disturbed but he also managed to smile and shrug it away. "All right, the world is safe. Duo is safe as well, safe enough to have a meet and greet with the locals."

Duo was coming out of the surf, a bronze god dripping water and sparkling with sunshine. "Something small," Heero said warningly.

"Lemonade, tea cookies, and sitting on the porch," Frank promised with a chuckle. "Maybe a cookout later, if Duo doesn't try to defuse Mrs. Havernathy's hearing aides or carry Pertrick to a safe location in the Alps."

Heero winced, remembering his first get together with his friends. "You joke as if that can't happen."

Nancy wiggled excitedly and gave a little bark as she caught sight of Duo. Duo had become her new favorite. Heero didn't blame her. When Duo caught sight of them in turn, and didn't hesitate suspiciously, or automatically reach for a weapon that wasn't there, Heero had to admit that Frank was right. It was time to stop hiding him and treating him like an invalid.

"Tomorrow," Heero decided. "Late afternoon at your place."

"Not too late," Frank warned, "or the bugs will eat us alive."

"Three?" Heero suggested.

"Three, it is," Frank agreed and then waved and called to Duo. "Is that Duo, or a reject from a surfer vid?"

Duo laughed as he pushed little dread locks and beaded braids, wet with water, out of his face. "Surfing lessons are next week."

Duo picked up the dog, to her delight, and tucked her under one arm as he climbed the steps to the porch.

"Heero says we can invite you to a little get together tomorrow," Frank told him. "IS that all right with you."

Duo smirked. "Finally, someone asking me what I think instead of tiptoeing and asking Heero. I like you, Frank."

Frank blushed and seemed uncomfortable, shooting a glance at Heero. "Well, you're going to waste away from boredom if you don't get out for some socialization," Frank chuckled.

"True, though I haven't been bored, yet," Duo admitted."I like the days being the same, the peace, the surf... "

"Then you two make a good couple," Frank replied with a shake of his head. "If we didn't use a pry bar, once in awhile, Heero would sleep most of the day and arrange shells for the rest of it."

Duo laughed and it sounded good to Heero. Watching the water bead and slide along Duo's bronzed skin, the way his swimsuit, a tight, clinging piece of red fabric, molded to his wet body, made Heero wonder if it was time for other things as well. Surely they had resolved trust issues?

frank felt a tension between them that didn't include a third person. He cleared his throat, took Nancy from Duo, and said, as he patted her head, "Time for the old folks to go, I think. You two remember to show up, tomorrow."

Duo looked a bit confused as he watched Frank go, disappearing around a sand dune, but when he looked at Heero and saw smoldering blue eyes he understood. He smiled in return, reaching out and running a hand lightly along Heero's arm. Heero felt goose bumps.

"My bedroom or yours?" Duo wanted to know.

"Let's make one ours," Heero suggested softly.

Duo nodded and they both went inside.

Clothes came off quickly and essentials were gathered from the bathroom. Condoms and lube hit the bed between them and then they faced each other nude, blatantly showing their desire for one another.

Duo's eyes caressed Heero. He suddenly jumped on the bed, rolled, and then came up standing on Heero's side. He pulled Heero into an embrace, their erections coming together.

"That's better," Duo sighed.

"Much better," Heero agreed, but he asked, cautiously, "Is this all right, Duo? Are you sure we shouldn't wait?"

"I won't wait another second," Duo replied vehemently. "You have to understand that I wanted to believe that I was loved. I lied to myself/ Now that I've been with you, I can see the difference. It's like... the difference between standing on the sun and walking a dead moon. This is as real as it gets and I know it. I trust you with my life, with my heart, with everything, Heero. I know that you won't fail that trust."

Heero kissed him and then whispered his promise against Duo's lips."Forever, Duo. That's how long I want to be with you."

"Forever," Duo agreed with a soft smile and then they were sinking down onto a bed bathed in the afternoon light through the window, Duo's long hair, still damp, all around them and the smell of sun and beach coming off of his skin like an aphrodisiac.

Duo kissed Heero, pinched his skin, and ran a tongue along his jaw line, as if he was testing Heero's reality. When he began to kiss a trail down the center of Heero's chest, hands already stroking at Heero's cock, Heero took hold of his hands and stopped him. When their eyes met, Heero kissed Duo deeply.

"I want to have sex with you. I love you," Heero told Duo in a whisper against his lips. "This can last all evening... all night... our entire lives, and I'll still want more."

Heero could imagine how a man who didn't have any interest in another man might want to have sex: In the dark, quick jerk off, and a quicker blow job. Reciprocating that act would be almost nonexistent. This wasn't going to be even a shadow of that, Heero determined, and he was the one who now turned Duo onto his back and made his slow, delicious way down to Duo's cock. When he took it deep into his mouth and caressed it with his tongue, Duo's buck on the bed let him know that the man hadn't been treated like that lately, if ever.

Duo came soon and hard, groaning out his pleasure and gripping at Heero's head. His stammered apology, after, made Heero smile.

"Unless you want to stop now," Heero said to him, "We can do it again."

Duo started to move, eyes sparking with worry. "Of course, you need to come."

Heero caught at him and kept him on his back. He caressed Duo gently. "I meant that I could give you another blow job. I really enjoy doing them."

Duo's eyes were wide and hinted at held back tears. He blinked rapidly and took a deep breath. "God, I love you, Heero!" he suddenly exclaimed.

"I love you, too," Heero said just as passionately. "It's time that someone took care of you and loved you like you deserve. I'm going to be that someone."

Duo chuckled ruefully. At Heero's questioning look, he admitted, "I never thought I'd hear those words from you. I couldn't even hope. That's why-"

Heero kissed away whatever he had been about to say next. "Not here," he said. "Not ever. That's the past. Let it go away."

Duo nodded shakily and then he was pulling Heero into his arms.

They made love, hands caressing, lips teasing and savoring, and bodies coming together again and again. When Heero rode on top of Duo, hands locked together and Duo deep inside of him, Heero's blue eyes were intensely on Duo's eyes when he came, letting Duo see his love there. When He spread Duo wide and entered deep, he made sure that Duo knew that it was with love and passion for him that he came so powerfully, wrapping Duo up in his arms, afterward, and keeping him close all night long.

When morning light woke Heero, Duo was still wrapped in his arms, breathing lightly in sleep, sun beams making his hair seem flecked with gold and red. He looked relaxed, happy, and free of the weight of his betrayal. Heero wasn't fooled that it was gone completely, but he had erased a great deal of it last night.

Restless, Heero slipped out of bed, wrapped a loose terry robe around him, and opened the front door to let in the cool morning breezes off the dunes. He was surprised to see a tray, with a thermos and a bag, sitting on the doorstep.

Heero teased a small note off of the bag and read, Good Morning! Thought you two would like some breakfast in bed. See you this afternoon. Frank.

Heero smiled fondly, carried the tray into the kitchen, snagged two mugs and napkins, and took the tray into the bedroom. Duo was already stirring, a hand sliding over the sheets and finding Heero gone.

"Breakfast, courtesy of Frank," Heero announced.

Not long ago, Heero would have rejected the breakfast as possibly contaminated by enemies. As Duo sat up, hair mussed, and eyes full of sleep, he put the tray on the bed, dug a powdered donut out of the bag and bit into it.

As Heero sat on the bed, Duo leaned over and kissed some of the powdered sugar off of his lips. "Tastes good," Duo announced and then yawned.

Duo poured the coffee for them both and then took up a mug and warmed his hands with it, looking at Heero over the light steam. He seemed embarrassed, unsure, and watching Heero for a clue as to how he should react.

"You were...." Heero searched for the right words and Duo's nervousness grew as he licked his lips and reached for his coffee mug. He took a long sip, considering, and then finished, "Like a force of nature. So passionate, so very sexy, so.... everything I've always wanted."

Duo was relieved, but then he was grinning as he said, "When they made the 'A' list, they were thinking of you as the yardstick. I've never..." he swallowed hard, losing his attempt at humor. "I felt loved," he finally finished and looked down into his mug, blushing.

"Get used to it," Heero chuckled. "If you'll have me, I want to wake up to you every morning for the rest of my life."

Duo looked serious, then, his eyes going distant, "No more missions, no more risking my life, no more living for everyone else. No more lies."

"It's time for us," Heero agreed. "Time to stand down and live our lives."

Duo nodded solemnly. They sat, shoulder to shoulder, exchanging kisses, between bites of donut and sips of coffee. When they were done, they made their way to the surf, and swam in the waves while the rising sun made everything fresh and new and as if for them alone.

The End

 

TBC

Please check out my male romance/detective novels on Nook and Kindle by searching my pen name Kracken


End file.
